The Nile region consists of 10 countries and nearly half a billion people. The area has experienced some of the world’s most barbaric conflicts in recent years — the genocide in Rwanda, the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, the war in Darfur, and the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Nothing will influence the future of these countries more than whether they succeed in managing the only thing they have in common — the mighty river Nile.

This film on the longest and most fabled river in the world, written and presented by Professor Terje Tvedt, is unique in two ways. Unlike all other films on the Nile it tells the fascinating story about the most revolutionary period in the river´s long history; it covers those years in our modern history when the relationship between the populations of the eleven Nile countries and the river changed fundamentally and with enormous far-reaching consequences. It is also special since it is based on the presenter’s many years of research; the host, a professor in history, geography and political science, has written more books on water and the Nile than any other person and is probably also the man who has traveled more extensively in the Nile basin than any other in his generation

Viewers will be taken on a voyage through 5000 years of history and up the river from the Mediterranean to the sources of the White Nile and the Blue Nile in the heart of Africa, a voyage through deserts, swamps and rainforests, visiting on the way the offices of presidents and prime ministers and talking to people living on the banks of the river. The film unravels the dramatic quest for controlling the Nile. The film presents a new and alternative perspective on the Nile and its important role in the current world.

Terje Tvedt's book "Nilen. Historiens elv", the book on which the TV- series is based, is translated into English and will be published in England and the US in 2016. Tvedt's book "The River Nile in the Age of the British" which in 2006 was shortlisted as one of the best books published in the world on the Middle East, and which has been sold out by publishers in Europe, the US and the Middle East, will be re-published as a paperback in 2015 by IB Tauris in the UK and Distributed by MacMillan in the US.